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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28291188">and my lipstick on your face</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/oopshidaisy/pseuds/oopshidaisy'>oopshidaisy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Female Tony Stark, Love Confessions, Pining</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:07:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,051</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28291188</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/oopshidaisy/pseuds/oopshidaisy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony’s like a bolt of lightning in clunky combat boots; a five-foot-two stick of dynamite who never manages to keep her firetruck red lipstick inside the lines but pulls it off anyway; a billionaire socialite who has to be reminded at least half the time to wear a bra when she’s leaving the house. She’s exhausting. She’s brilliant. She is going to give Pepper a heart attack, one of these days.</p><p>It’s the being in love with her that’s the problem.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Pepper Potts/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and my lipstick on your face</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so yes this is my second 'what if pepper/tony but wlw' fic this year. i can't offer much explanation beyond the fact that sapphic tony stark lives rent free in my head at all times</p><p>title's from 'you and i' by lady gaga</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Every day, Pepper tells herself she loves her job, and nine out of ten times she believes it. Ten out of ten days, at least, she knows she’s damn good at it. She’s efficient, neat, polite, organized—all the things, in short, that Tony Stark is not.</p><p>They make a good team.</p><p>Sometimes, that’s the problem.</p><p>Tony’s like a bolt of lightning in clunky combat boots; a five-foot-two stick of dynamite who never manages to keep her firetruck red lipstick inside the lines but pulls it off anyway; a billionaire socialite who has to be reminded at least half the time to wear a bra when she’s leaving the house. She’s exhausting. She’s brilliant. She is going to give Pepper a heart attack, one of these days.</p><p>It’s the being in love with her that’s the problem.</p><p>*</p><p>“If I skip that meeting today, how many people am I pissing off?”</p><p>Tony’s sleeping schedule is going to be the death of everyone she employs. It’s five in the morning, and the gleam in Tony’s eye tells Pepper she’s been awake for at least twenty-four hours already. She’s at the stage of sleeplessness where she decides it’s a good idea to drag one of the bodyguards they keep stationed around the house 24/7 into her state-of-the-art boxing ring, and Pepper is helpless but to watch the fallout. If Tony gets herself another black eye they have to spend hours covering up before she appears in public, they’re going to have <em>words</em>.</p><p>Jeremy—the six-foot-four man in the ring with her right now—is one of the few bodyguards who doesn’t pull his punches because Tony’s a woman, which Tony appreciates and Pepper just barely tolerates. She knows Tony can handle herself, but she’s equally aware of Tony’s penchant for masochism. It’s a delicate balance.</p><p>At first, Tony had protested the live-in protection—Rhodey and Pepper had been forced to gang up on her after the incident with the stalker and the sharp increase in sexual threats after Tony had come out to the public. <em>It’s funny</em>, Tony’d said, when someone spray-painted DYKE BITCH on the gate, and Rhodey had said <em>Not to me</em>, doing that protective thing that Tony hates from everyone else but loves from him. Half a decade later, Tony’s made her peace with the lack of privacy, mostly by fighting all of her bodyguards.</p><p>It’s always a sight to behold: Tony is half the size of her opponent but twice as vicious, and—well, Pepper doesn’t technically <em>have </em>to sit there, watching, but she does. She has her reasons.</p><p>Right now, she’s trying not to nag, standing unobtrusively in the corner with a clipboard and her eyes fixed on the graceful way Tony ducks and weaves out of Jeremy’s way.</p><p>“Too many,” Pepper replies, eventually. “You have to go.”</p><p>“Well, shit, because then there’s that party in the evening and I <em>wanted </em>to at least get some design work done before the weekend, since the board’s breathing down my neck about it.” Tony lands a punch to Jeremy’s gut and dances out of the way, grinning. Her sports bra is drenched with sweat; they’ve been at this for a while. “How much shit am I gonna get if I present the aid delivery drones rather than the missile?”</p><p>“You can present the aid delivery drones as multi-purpose,” Pepper suggests. “They <em>can</em> be weaponized, and if you’ve gotten further with that design…”</p><p>“Right, right,” Tony says. “Only, you know if I say ‘weaponize’ then any other utilization goes out the window.”</p><p>“I do know that.” Pepper resists saying <em>But you’re a weapons designer</em>, because this is an argument that they have at least once a month, so familiar that they’re both used to the grooves of it.</p><p>“Okay, Jer, we’re done,” Tony steps out of the ring, bringing a towel up to her forehead. When her back’s turned, Pepper can see Jeremy checking out her ass. She wonders if they’ve slept together, and just as quickly decides she doesn’t want to know. “So, itinerary is that I go to this boring meeting, come back and spend, like, four hours making myself pretty, and then I go to this party with a tall, handsome date the company’s arranged for me. That about right?”</p><p>“It’ll take five hours to make you pretty,” Pepper says. “It’s a very important party.”</p><p>“You—” Tony says, jabbing a finger in Pepper’s direction, “—are a cruel mistress. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”</p><p>“That’s not usually considered a compliment,” Pepper says.</p><p>“No? Oh, well, you know I love a little cruelty.” Tony winks. Pepper rolls her eyes and tells her to take a shower, because she is professional to a fault and not deeply, horribly attracted to her boss.</p><p>*</p><p>Pepper advises against the trip to Afghanistan from the start, which makes her feel no better because Tony isn’t even around to hear her say <em>I told you so</em>.</p><p>She stays in Tony’s house, because no one tells her not to.</p><p>It seems like she spends every day just waiting for Rhodey’s check-in call, and then the rest of the day processing the soft way he says something along the lines of, “We’re not sure, yet. We’re still narrowing it down, where she might be. There’s a lot of ground to cover. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Rhodey never says that Tony is probably dead, because Rhodey is kind and in just as much denial as Pepper is.</p><p>The night she accidentally falls asleep in Tony’s bed, searching out a familiar scent that isn’t there anymore, she doesn’t cry; she wakes up at three am instead, runs to the en suite and throws up.</p><p>She knows that she has a right to mourn. She spent every day with Tony; she’s been her personal assistant (more than a personal assistant, certainly paid better than one) for going on ten years; she was one of Tony’s only friends. The thing that’s getting to her is that Tony never knew exactly how much she meant—<em>means</em>—to Pepper.</p><p>With the people Tony loves, she’s almost ridiculously free with her affection. Whenever Pepper got her a day off, or organized a trip Tony wanted to go on, Tony would say <em>I love you </em>or <em>You’re the best </em>or <em>Never leave me</em> and Pepper would feel her throat constrict and reply with something along the lines of <em>That’s not very professional, Ms. Stark</em>. It never seemed to offend Tony, or deter her. She would just laugh, saying, <em>Oh, I love it when you call me Ms. Stark</em>.</p><p>Just once, Pepper could’ve said it back.</p><p>*</p><p>“Bet you didn’t even miss me,” Tony says, in the line for Burger King (they could’ve—probably <em>should have</em>—gone with the drive-thru. There’s no way Tony isn’t aware of how many phone cameras are pointed at her. But no one had argued with <em>Please, let me stretch my legs</em>.) That morning, Pepper had very carefully applied concealer over the redness of her eyes and neatly piled her hair into a bun. “That’s the most time off you’ve had in years.”</p><p>“Tony,” Pepper says. Stops. “You really should go to the hospital.”</p><p>“There are more important things than my fragile middle-aged health,” Tony says, even though she’s so blatantly still in pain that Pepper can hardly stand it. “They took care of me on the base, anyway.”</p><p>“Rhodey told me about—”</p><p>“I’ll get used to it,” Tony says. “I mean, actually, it’s kind of cool, having Stark tech <em>literally inside me</em>.”</p><p>“But doesn’t it hurt?” Pepper asks.</p><p>Then they’re at the front of the line and Tony starts ordering, not looking at Pepper.</p><p>*</p><p>“At least tuck the shirt in,” Pepper says. “This press conference is going to set the tone for your return, and if people think you’re not—”</p><p>“But my arm’s in a sling,” Tony argues, stubborn to a fault. “And the doctor told me to not put any undue strain on myself, these first few weeks.”</p><p>“Tucking your shirt in counts as <em>undue strain</em>?”</p><p>“Sure it does.” Pepper reaches out to help Tony out of the car, careful not to jostle any of her injuries. Tony smiles at her once she’s on her feet, brown eyes big and smudged with the mascara she’d stolen out of Pepper’s bag on the way over. “God, I’ve missed you. Concerned about my appearance at a time like this. How anti-feminist of you.”</p><p>By the time Pepper’s done glaring, Tony’s halfway to the door already.</p><p>*</p><p>“—shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries, effective immediately.”</p><p>Pepper’s phone instantly starts buzzing in her pocket. She looks to Obadiah, whose eyes are filled with cold rage even as his words come out smooth, pacifying. She looks to Rhodey, who just seems confused.</p><p>She closes her eyes, and starts coming up with a game plan.</p><p>*</p><p>She’s told to keep Tony in the house. She’s told to make Tony change her mind, somehow. She’s told that, technically, she is employed by Stark Industries, not Antonia Stark, and her job is to behave in the interest of the company. She’s told that if weapons manufacturing isn’t back on the table by the end of the month, she’ll be let go.</p><p>In the grand scheme of things, she’s not particularly worried about job security. Tony’d hire her back in an instant, or kick up a big enough fuss to make Stark Industries keep her on.</p><p>She’s worried about Tony.</p><p>Tony barely slept before. She preferred catching four-hour bursts during the week and then spending the entirety of Sunday in bed, or trying to work for three days straight and falling asleep in her workshop, over plans for something that wasn’t really as deadly as it should be. And then Obadiah would slink in to remind Tony that peace means having the bigger stick, and he’d slip the name <em>Howard </em>in there somewhere, and by the morning Tony would have the designs for something like the fucking Jericho Missile.</p><p>(Tony’s always had more to offer the world than just making things that blow up, and she’s always wanted to offer those things to the world. Pepper should’ve seen this coming a long time ago—even encouraged it, perhaps. God knows she’s lost a few nights over her peripheral involvement in what Stark Industries does. Or in what it <em>did</em>, since apparently Tony’s finally gotten sick of losing sleep to earn the approval of Howard’s ghost.)</p><p>There’s definitely more of a sense of purpose in the way Tony moves now she’s back, even if she’s jittery and a little manic. Frequently, she rubs at the circular device on her chest, which Pepper hasn’t actually seen yet and isn’t sure she wants to see, ever. It’s like Tony is checking that the arc reactor’s still there, as opposed to a hole.</p><p>Pepper doesn’t, in point of fact, actually know what Tony’s working on. She’s spending seventeen-hour stretches in her workshop, emerging only for health smoothies and junk food—an uneasy alliance that Pepper’s been trying to talk her out of for years. And Pepper could go down there, has had access to the workshop ever since Tony fell asleep underneath a car a couple years ago. Something holds her back. She thinks that maybe she doesn’t want to know exactly what’s happening down there.</p><p>*</p><p>She’s on the phone trying to placate Obadiah when Tony’s voice rings out from a speaker overhead.</p><p>“Pep, I need you.”</p><p>Pepper has spent a long time cultivating a ruthlessly professional persona, which means that she stamps down the feelings that Tony calling her <em>Pep </em>gives her very quickly.</p><p>“Be down in a minute,” she says, because Tony hadn’t sounded particularly urgent and Obadiah is midway through droning on about overheads. “Mr. Stane, it’s been good to talk to you. As you know full well, I’m not Tony’s mother; she is a grown woman, and she makes her own decisions. I’ll see you on Thursday and we can discuss strategies going forward. Right. Thank you. Bye.”</p><p>She touches her cool fingers to her temple for a few seconds and just breathes. She knows that Tony loves Obadiah, but it’s like the relationship Tony’d had with her father—too complicated for Pepper to really parse, attach an easy definition to. She doesn’t always get on with her own parents (they’d had a difficult time with her sexuality, for one thing, and her employer, for another) but she knows they love and value her, whereas Tony—</p><p>Well. Howard had wanted a girl, just not one like Tony.</p><p>She’d never known Howard Stark, but she’s had to work in close proximity with Obadiah Stane for over a decade, now, and she hates him in a way she hadn’t known she could hate anyone. Oh, she’s calm and genial with him whenever they speak, but there’s something about the way he looks at her—and Tony—that raises her haunches automatically, the way her defenses go up whenever she walks alone at night.</p><p>Pepper’s used to being patronized. As a rule, Tony’s male one-night-stands are worse than her female ones, but she’s taken her fair share of shit from the lot of them. Most of the Stark Industries board members look down their noses at her, although she’s gained some respect by ‘keeping Tony in line.’ Obadiah is worse than all of them combined.</p><p>The worst of it is that Tony, who very loudly takes shit from no one, never seems to realize that Obadiah takes every opportunity to belittle her.</p><p>Pepper rolls her shoulders back to work the strain out of them, and makes her way down to the workshop.</p><p>*</p><p>“Don’t freak out, you’ve seen my tits before.”</p><p>Pepper is, in complete seriousness, not looking at Tony’s breasts. She doesn’t think she could tear her eyes from the blue ring nestled in between them if she tried.</p><p>“I’m not freaking out,” she says slowly, evenly.</p><p>“Okay, well, good,” Tony says. “You might be in a minute. Depends on how well this goes. You ever played <em>Operation</em>?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter, never mind, all I’m counting on is that your hands are smaller than mine. Right?” Tony’s tiny; her hands are tiny. Pepper just looks at her, gaze darting between those pleading brown eyes and the electric blue of the arc reactor. “Fine, it’s more to do with the angle—I can’t really—will you just help me?”</p><p>DUM-E whirs ominously from off to Pepper’s right.</p><p>“What do you need me to do?” she asks.</p><p>*</p><p>After the arc reactor’s been switched out, Tony doesn’t cover herself up. She’s always been a little bit shameless, a bit of an exhibitionist, but this isn’t like she wants Pepper to look. This is like she feels comfortable, like she doesn’t have to hide the hole in her chest. Pepper had been able to see her heart. She still feels faint.</p><p>“I don’t,” Tony says, and then she cuts herself off, frowning. “I don’t <em>have </em>anyone else. It’s only you. It’s always been you.”</p><p>This is the kind of thing Pepper would rather hear from a Tony Stark who has a shirt on.</p><p>She says, “I’ll always be here,” because she can’t imagine being anywhere else.</p><p>*</p><p>Tony goes stir-crazy, of course she does. Pepper’s been told to keep her still, but Tony Stark never stays still. Any day now she’s going to go tearing down the coast in one of her cars and she’ll total it and there’s nothing Pepper’s going to be able to do except grovel to the board afterward.</p><p>The board, who are raising serious questions about Tony’s state of mind. Pepper lies to them, a daily ritual. <em>Tony’s fine, she’s adjusting, she’s going to the doctor’s appointments, she’s considering therapy</em>. The only person she doesn’t lie to is Rhodey, although Rhodey hasn’t spoken directly to Tony since she shut down weapons manufacturing. He still cares enough to grill Pepper over the phone, a barrage of questions Pepper doesn’t know how to answer. If Tony has PTSD, Pepper’s not qualified to diagnose it.</p><p>She says as much. Rhodey keeps calling, like he doesn’t know what else to do.</p><p>*</p><p>Obadiah should have known better than to throw a gala without inviting Tony, there’s no way around that.</p><p>She’d been so careful not to mention it, not with Tony bouncing off the walls and spending too much time locked away in the workshop, music blaring so loud Pepper gets the ghost of a headache halfway down the stairs. Tony knows that; she’s blocking her out on purpose. And now Tony’s found out about a party she can crash, so here she is.</p><p>She’s made an effort, but only insomuch as she knows she can piss people off with a dress cut into a V that dips below her sternum, pitch black and accented with blood-red accessories. Hair in a messy tangle down to her shoulders, red lipstick just barely outside the lines. Eyeliner smudged. She’s like something out of Pepper’s most shameful dreams, right down to her bitten nails and the grease-stain on her throat.</p><p>As always, she knows how to make an entrance—knows the amassed photographers will go mad for the traumatized recluse driving herself to a charity event in four-inch heels, swanning down the red carpet with her skirt flowing out behind her, slit just the right side of indecent.</p><p>Obadiah looks like he’s swallowed something sour. Pepper smiles.</p><p>“How come I wasn’t invited?” Tony asks once inside, pulling Pepper to a secluded corner and pressing a glass of champagne into her hand. “You’re meant to invite me to these things.”</p><p>“Actually, I never invite you to things. I just tell you when you’ve received a—” Pepper cuts herself off, checks over her shoulder. “It wasn’t my choice. Obadiah kept you off the guest list.”</p><p>“Because I’m an invalid?” Tony smiles derisively. “If they knew what I was working on…”</p><p>And Pepper knows better than to ask, but the curiosity feels like a constant drilling in her skull. The question of what’s got Tony so worked up, what’s keeping the manic glint in her eyes, is ever-present.</p><p>“You should wear dresses like that more often,” Tony says. She’s looking Pepper up and down, and there’s this look on her face that Pepper knows is bad news, at the same time as she knows she loves it.</p><p>“What, this? It was a gift—from you, actually. Late birthday present.”</p><p>Tony always forgets her birthday, and gives absolutely terrible gifts besides. They’ve reached an arrangement that involves Pepper receiving a ridiculous sum of money alongside her paycheck in April, on the condition that she uses it to buy something nice.</p><p>Tony hums. “There’ll be talk.”</p><p>“Isn’t there always?” Pepper responds.</p><p>Tony’s grin is lightning-fast and electric. “Okay, so let’s give ‘em something good. Dance with me,” she says.</p><p>This isn’t the sort of event where women dance together. Pepper’s eyes slide to the center of the room, black-tie heterosexual couples turning in blandly choreographed circles. She looks back at Tony, who’s holding out her hand with a tilt to her eyebrows; Pepper can’t tell if it’s mocking or nervous. The fact that she can’t tell leaves her feeling off-kilter; she’s meant to know Tony better than herself—it’s her job.</p><p>“That’s—it’s unprofessional, Ms. Stark.”</p><p>Tony snorts. “How come it’s only ever <em>Ms. Stark </em>when I flirt with you? No, you know what, never mind. It doesn’t have to be a <em>thing</em>, we can just dance.”</p><p>Pepper’s heart is very loud in her ears. Tony loops a hand around her wrist, tugs her gently to the edge of the dancefloor. It’s a meaningless acquiescence; all eyes will be on Tony whether she’s in the center of the room or off to the side. Pepper, god help her, appreciates the gesture all the same.</p><p>Quietly, Tony says, “Not too late to run for the exit.”</p><p>“Are you talking to me or yourself?”</p><p>Tony smiles up at her—the heels aren’t quite high enough to equalize their heights—and Pepper forces herself to hold eye contact. Tony’s eyes, too, are uncharacteristically steady. Normally nothing can hold her attention for long; her gaze flits around, permanently restless. Pepper wonders what she’s done to become the object of focus.</p><p>Tony’s arms are draped loose enough around Pepper’s neck to be proper; there’s enough space between them to keep a Catholic school happy. Pepper’s hands tighten on Tony’s waist. She wants to be closer—that’s the entire <em>problem</em>. Tony gives her an inch, she wants the whole nine yards. She wants to press their bodies flush together and just—</p><p>(Be held.)</p><p>Instead, she keeps her distance. She teases Tony about not knowing her own social security number. All she can think about is that if Tony had gotten ready in front of her, presented herself for inspection before they left, Pepper would have swiped a finger across the bottom of Tony’s lips to neaten the line of her lipstick. She thinks she likes it better this way, but there’s still a part of her that wishes she’d had the chance to touch.</p><p>“Air,” she says. “I need air.”</p><p>Tony releases her, but follows her out to the balcony, eyes devastatingly wide like she doesn’t know why Pepper would want to leave.</p><p>“You can’t just—<em>do </em>things like that,” Pepper bursts out. Her skin feels hot, impervious to the night air. “Or, maybe you can, but <em>I </em>can’t. My job’s on a knife-edge even without making headlines, and—”</p><p>“I won’t let them fire you,” Tony says, like it’s really that simple.</p><p>“I have a reputation to think about,” Pepper says.</p><p>“Is that what this is about? People thinking you’re a lesbian?”</p><p>“I <em>am </em>a lesbian.”</p><p>Tony blinks. “Wait, really? You never said anything.”</p><p>“Please, tell me more about how I should divulge my sexual orientation to my boss.” Pepper’s being unfair, she knows, but she hadn’t wanted to come out like this. She’d <em>wanted </em>to, but in Tony’s case it felt like it would reveal too much, like by saying the words Tony would finally attach context to the way Pepper looks at her.</p><p>“I’m not—” Tony says, and then seems to realize that she <em>is</em>. She is Pepper’s boss, and no amount of wishing on Pepper’s part is going to make that go away.</p><p>“I get it,” Pepper says. “I know everything about your life, and the lines—they get blurred, and I try not to let them but you’re so…”</p><p>“So what?”</p><p>“Infuriating,” Pepper says. “You never let me keep my distance.”</p><p>Tony’s eyes are searching. “Do you <em>want </em>me to keep my distance?”</p><p>They’re very close, Pepper realizes: bodies tilted towards each other, the kind of intimacy where if Pepper was a man they’d be front-page news in every trashy magazine tomorrow. Pepper thinks about stepping back, and doesn’t.</p><p>“No,” she breathes.</p><p>She feels Tony’s surprised exhale against her own lips.</p><p>Just then, there’s a loud squawk of laughter from inside the ballroom, and Pepper jerks backward. Tony reaches out to steady her, and Pepper shakes her head.</p><p>“We shouldn’t be talking about this,” she says, decisively. Tony frowns. “Not here, at the very least. Shall we go home?”</p><p>There’s something unbearably tender in the way Tony looks at her, then, before her expression morphs into something a little more businesslike. “I should probably get a drink before I go, for appearances’ sake. You could head back without me?”</p><p>“No, I’ll stay out here for a bit,” Pepper says, looking up at the foggy sprawl of stars. “It’s peaceful. Go be Tony Stark.”</p><p>*</p><p>When she next finds Tony, she’s on the steps outside and she looks shellshocked, like she couldn’t move if she tried. Pepper takes in the blinking lights from the photographers and loops her arm around Tony’s limp one.</p><p>“It’s Obie,” Tony says.</p><p>Pepper doesn’t ask. She takes Tony home.</p><p>*</p><p>Stark Industries’ stock continues to plummet. All estimates had suggested it would level itself out by now, but every day Pepper receives another livid email from one of the board members: <em>Has Miss Stark reconsidered her position yet? </em>As if it’s only a matter of time, as if this is a passing whim that Tony needs to get out of her system.</p><p>They see it as so clear cut: Tony shut down weapons manufacturing because of the trauma of being captured; ergo, once she recovers from the trauma, they’ll be back in business. None of them care enough about Tony to know that this has been coming for years.</p><p>There’s still the issue of placating them, however, and the radio silence from Tony has them increasingly antsy. She’s not exactly in the loop, but she’s observant enough to realize that the longer this goes on, the less power Tony will have over her own company.</p><p>She can fix this.</p><p>She goes down to the workshop.</p><p>*</p><p>“Are those <em>bullet holes</em>?”</p><p>*</p><p>Tony doesn’t even crack a joke when Pepper insists on inspecting every inch of her body for injuries, which is how Pepper knows her panic attack is very much visible.</p><p>“Why would you do that?” she asks, quiet and choked.</p><p>Tony’s in a tank top and underwear, and there are bruises inflicted by the metal of the—whatever it is, Pepper doesn’t want to think about it—all over her limbs, just starting to blossom purple. Her nose is bleeding sluggishly.</p><p>She says, “I had to.”</p><p>“I thought you stopped all this,” Pepper says.</p><p>There’s silence for long enough that Pepper recognizes the full absurdity of her words. Tony’s never been the type to sit back and relax; Pepper should have known from the moment Rhodey told her how Tony escaped the cave that Tony would still be working on the technology.</p><p>“Yinsen was from Gulmira,” Tony says. Pepper knows it isn’t a non-sequitur.</p><p>Tony’s only ever mentioned Yinsen in passing, never dwelling on memories of her captivity. Pepper knows second-hand from Rhodey that Yinsen had died during Tony’s escape, but at the time she hadn’t wanted details. She’s not completely sure she wants any now.</p><p>Pepper reaches out and takes Tony’s hand in hers.</p><p>“I can’t make up for what Stark weapons have done,” Tony says. “I could save—the whole fucking world, and there’d still be innocent people who died because I trusted Obadiah. Trusted my father, that what we were doing was the right thing.” There are tears gleaming where the light hits her bottom lashes, but Pepper knows Tony well enough that she’s relatively sure they won’t fall.</p><p>“You can try to make amends without killing yourself,” Pepper whispers. She can already see the extent to which this entire endeavor is about Tony punishing herself, that Tony feels better when she’s in pain. It’s about saving people, too, and probably a bit about looking cool in the hot-rod red and shiny gold, but Tony’s always had an almost religious zeal for castigation.</p><p>Tony just looks at her like Pepper doesn’t understand.</p><p>*</p><p>And maybe she doesn’t.</p><p>Maybe it makes her angry—no, okay, it makes her fucking <em>livid</em>, that Tony would do this. Just strap on this ridiculous contraption, with its supersonic speeds and its built-in missiles, and fly herself into warzones without a care in the world for her own safety or—or for who she’s leaving behind.</p><p>Pepper so rarely gets to be selfish. She’s rarely even tempted to be. It figures that the only thing she’d want to be selfish about is Tony fucking Stark.</p><p>She thinks about the hole in Tony’s chest. She thinks about how vulnerable she’d looked when Pepper had replaced the arc reactor, with the throb of her heart visible beyond the dark tunnel of the reactor’s casing. She’d kept the first reactor, and she’d had it mounted in a glass case and she’d been ridiculously sentimental about the whole thing. Probably, Tony shoved the thing in a cupboard and never looked at it twice.</p><p>“I quit,” she says.</p><p>She’s stood in the doorway of the workshop, and Tony’s surrounded by screens and designs and scraps of scribbled ideas for improvements. She’s still banged up from saving those people in Gulmira.</p><p>And this isn’t an ultimatum. Pepper’s under no illusions; Tony won’t give this whole thing up to make Pepper stay. Pepper wouldn’t love her if she was the kind of person who’d do that, anyway.</p><p>“All these years,” Tony says slowly. She looks tired, and at the same time the most awake Pepper has ever seen her. “All these years by my side, through all the—the inappropriate flirting and getting you to throw out my dates in the morning, because I thought somehow I could make you <em>jealous</em>, and through all the war profiteering, that’s what Christine Everhart called it and she’s right. But I start trying to actually <em>fix </em>all that, and that’s when you decide to leave.”</p><p>When she puts it like that, Pepper sounds insane. And—you know what, maybe she is.</p><p>“I am in love with you,” Pepper says, her voice staying impressively level. “I have been in love with you for longer than I care to remember, and if there’s one thing I can’t do it’s watch you die. And this thing’s going to kill you. So I quit.”</p><p>She turns around; she’s going to make it out without crying; her foot’s on the lowest step.</p><p>“I’m in love with you, too.”</p><p>She turns back.</p><p>Tony’s fingers are drumming across her knee. She’s so tense Pepper can see the way her muscles are bunched up from across the room.</p><p>“I’ve been trying to tell you for years,” Tony adds. Her tone is really rather stiff. “You kept calling me Ms. Stark.”</p><p>“Yes. I do that,” Pepper says. She’s crying, now, the battle’s been lost.</p><p>“But this isn’t about that,” Tony says. “I’m not asking you to stay because you—because you love me. I’m asking you to stay because you think this is the right thing to do.”</p><p>“Tony—”</p><p>“Just one last thing. One last thing, and I’ll let you go,” Tony says. “I meant it when I said you’re all I’ve got. You’re the only one, and—and I need you on this. I need you.”</p><p>And that—that hits even harder than <em>I love you </em>had.</p><p>*</p><p>Pepper’s never been a good liar. She was the child who played whichever inanimate object was available in the school play, a tree one year and a star the next. She was the one parents and teachers turned to when they wanted to get to the bottom of alleged misbehavior.</p><p>It’s for Tony that she’s willing to try. Even though her cheeks are blazing, there’s sweat pooling under her arms, and her heart’s kicking up a storm as she walks the short distance from the car up to Tony’s office, she’s doing her best to play the role of loyal Stark Industries employee. Her hand is so tightly clenched around the flash drive Tony had given her that it’s leaving painful indents in her palm.</p><p>When she sits down in the familiar straight-backed leather chair, she can barely hear anything past her pulse thundering in her ears. She starts copying the files over, foot tapping a restless rhythm on the floor as the progress bar crawls its way to completion. Too slow.</p><p>Too slow by half, because Obadiah appears in the door right as it creeps to fifty-four percent.</p><p>“Miss Potts,” he says.</p><p>“Obadiah,” she manages to get out. Her voice is a remarkable thing, not abandoning her at a time like this. It’s not as steady as would be ideal, but Obadiah never pays enough attention to her for that to make the slightest bit of difference.</p><p>Obadiah makes his way to the table that boasts decanters of whiskey and scotch. Tony would probably admit to overcompensating with her office décor: even discounting the hypermasculine refreshments, the walls are lined with a gauche array of Stark weapons blueprints and one imposing portrait of Howard. No wonder Tony generally chooses to work from home.</p><p>“I realize this time has been difficult for you,” Obadiah’s saying as he tosses back a fifth of scotch. “Antonia is—well, it would be too much to expect that the girl we sent out there would come back in one piece, wouldn’t it?”</p><p>“She’s been remarkably resilient,” Pepper says. She looks down at the screen and sees the file being copied over: a large one, taking its time. A video. The thumbnail is Tony, in a torn shirt with bandages around her chest, a gun held unforgivingly to her head.</p><p><em>Why is there a video from Tony’s captivity on the Stark Industries server? </em>Pepper thinks, and it takes a few long moments for the implication to settle in. Her head jerks up and she gets caught in Obadiah’s stare. He’s smiling genially, indulgently. It’s a smile that looks like a threat.</p><p>“She’s a remarkable girl,” Obadiah agrees. Any other day, it would raise Pepper’s hackles—the way Stane insists on calling a middle-aged woman a <em>girl</em>, a patronizing tilt to the word. Right now, casual sexism couldn’t be further down her list of priorities.</p><p>This man tried to have Tony killed.</p><p>She doesn’t need to click on the video to know it’s true: Rhodey would have told her if there had been a hostage video, or any attempts by the terrorists to negotiate. And she can’t think of any other reason this video would be on Obadiah’s server.</p><p>She and Tony had known there’d be something incriminating on file—proof of Obadiah’s double-dealing, treason. But this is a different kind of betrayal, a personal one. Obadiah had wanted Tony <em>dead</em>.</p><p>Pepper takes in a shuddering breath.</p><p>“The board—”</p><p>“It was unfortunate to have to lock her out,” Obadiah smoothly cuts over her. “But I’m sure you’ll agree that she’s not been making the best decisions lately. For the company. For her.”</p><p>“It’s <em>her </em>company,” Pepper can’t help but say.</p><p>Obadiah’s expression tightens. “Stark Industries is more than just one girl,” he says. “It’s about keeping America safe. It’s about—”</p><p>Pepper’s heard enough, and the files are done uploading.</p><p>“I’m just here to pack up some of Tony’s things,” she says. Her tone is icy, but there are cracks in it. “So if you wouldn’t mind…”</p><p>Obadiah’s frown deepens. “Of course,” he says. But he doesn’t leave, just refills his drink and watches her in silence.</p><p>Tony hadn’t told her what to do in this situation. She picks up a box, tosses a couple of knick-knacks into it. She positions it in front of the computer, and pulls the flash drive out of the port under its concealment. All the while, Obadiah watches.</p><p>Even as she walks out of the office, out of the building, with the flash drive once again tight in her fist, she knows this isn’t the end of it.</p><p>*</p><p>When Tony tells her to push the button, she feels her heart cleave in two.</p><p>“You’ll die!”</p><p>“<em>Push it!</em>”</p><p>The worst is happening. The outcome that had filled her with dread as soon as she saw Tony in the armor is coming to fruition, and she’s helping. The arc reactor that powers the factory is set to blow, and it’ll take the whole city with it if they don’t concentrate the blast. It’s save the woman she loves or save the entire city—it should be a no-brainer.</p><p>“Tony!” she yells, one last time.</p><p>“Pepper,” Tony shouts back. “I need you to do it. Now!”</p><p>It’s the right thing to do.</p><p>She pushes the button.</p><p>*</p><p>Tony doesn’t die.</p><p>“I’m hard to kill,” she says, and her cocky grin is bloody because she’s split her lip, <em>again</em>. She’d been in the hospital for all of an hour before she’d discharged herself and left Pepper struggling to catch up, to get her back home in one piece.</p><p>“You’re <em>impossible</em>,” Pepper says. She looks down at Tony, at the bruises covering her face and limbs, at the sling keeping her broken arm in place. She’d thought she’d gotten used to loving Tony, to the ache of it. It’s been a long decade, after all. But seeing her, now, battered but lit up from the inside, happier than she’s ever seen her…</p><p>She kisses her.</p><p>Tony tastes like blood and gasoline, and Pepper takes her greedily onto her tongue.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>you will not believe how much grammarly hated my use of commas in this one (or maybe you will. either way, i'm defending them all as a valid stylistic choice)</p><p>anyway! thank you for reading one of my most wildly self-indulgent fics yet! come hang out on my tumblr <a href="https://morgans-starks.tumblr.com/">here</a> if you want, and comments/kudos are always very much appreciated &lt;3</p><p>i'm also on twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/oopshidaisy">here</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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